Absorbent articles such as panty liners, sanitary napkins and incontinence pads sometimes include three-dimensional elements on their top surface. Such elements may be obtained by embossing of the top sheet layer of the absorbent article. U.S. 2009/0312733A1 shows an example of an absorbent article having three-dimensional elements on the body-facing surface. Embossing is a reliable method, but is somewhat inflexible when it comes to providing a large variety of different patterns of three-dimensional elements, as a special embossing roll has to be obtained for each specific patterns. Also, it is difficult to obtain very fine three-dimensional dots and lines by means of embossing. There is therefore a need for an improved method of applying three-dimensional elements on the top sheet of absorbent articles.